


Take Me Home

by tardistoasgard



Category: Chicago Blackhawks - Fandom, Hockey RPF
Genre: Kaner as a cab driver, M/M, Tazer as a business man escaping New York
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 12:05:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardistoasgard/pseuds/tardistoasgard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick is hurting for money and turned once again to being an illegal taxi driver. He never really liked New York too much, so when an attractive businessman climbs into his cab and tells him to drive to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Patrick didn't complain too much. </p>
<p>AU based on the movie 'Take Me Home'. (Based HEAVILY on said movie)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, once again this is not beta'd haaaaaaaah. Sorry :c   
> Also, because it is AU, I took some liberties with David Toews' age.

_“I don’t care, just drive.”_

Patrick ran the words through his head once more, his eyes focused on the highway in front of him. There was a man in the backseat of his cab- _well,_ he thought, smiling a little when he called it his _cab._

He adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see the sleeping man’s face. It was raining lightly in New York and the winter cold was just beginning to show up when Patrick was just getting ready to call it a night and find a place to sleep. He had just gotten kicked out of his apartment because he couldn’t pay the rent. So he got into his car and began the process of turning it into a taxi- adding the meter, putting up his ‘license’, turning on his top light, and pulling on a Yankees cap. All day he had been driving around downtown, picking up business people and dropping them off. No one was the wiser about the fact that he wasn’t actually a licensed cab driver and the taxi wasn’t actually a licensed taxi.

Near the end of the night, Patrick had pulled to a stop next to some office building, closing his eyes briefly against the headache that had begun to form in the back of his skull.

The man had opened up the cab door and slid in, causing Patrick to open his eyes and glance at him through his mirror.   
“Where to?” He asked and the man barely looked at him before saying, “I don’t care, just drive” and throwing a wad of cash into the front seat.

So drive Patrick did. His next paycheck stared out of the window until he fell asleep; folding his long body onto the bench seat, apparently not caring that he was wrinkling his suit. Catching his second wind, Patrick drove southwest.

It wasn’t until the sun rose that the man in the back woke up, looking around for a second and blinking tired eyes, “Where are we?”

Pat smiled at him through the rearview mirror and replied, “Richmond.”

The brunette in the back seat pulled off deadpan really well for just waking up, “Virginia?”  
Patrick kept his grin and nodded, raising his eyebrows in question, “You said to drive.”

The man’s head dropped into his hand and he began to rub the bridge of his nose between two fingers, “Turn around.”  
“We’re on the highway.”

“Stop the car.” The man ground out and Patrick licked his lower lip nervously as he shrugged, signaled, and pulled over onto the shoulder.

“If you don’t have enough, we can work something out.” He tried hard to keep the lewd tone out of his voice and the man calm as he put the car in park.

The man jumped out of the car and walked into the ditch, shouting at the trees on the side of the road. He hurled his briefcase into the dense trees and stood there completely still for a moment before hiking up into the woods to retrieve it.

Sighing heavily, Patrick turned the car off and pocketed the keys, climbing out of the yellow taxi cab to follow him.

“Hey man, my name’s Patrick.” He introduced himself once he found the distraught looking man sitting on a fallen tree. He finally looked up as Pat approached and set his lip into a hard line before he responded.

“Jonathan.”

“Nice to meet you, Jonny.” He ignored the look on Jonathan’s face at the nickname and continued, “You wanna get back in the car and then we can figure all of this out? I don’t really like leaving it there on the side of the road.”

The brunette stared Patrick down once more as he stood, picking up the abused briefcase and following him back to the taxi. Once they were both in it again, Patrick took off his Yankees hat and ran his hands through his tow colored hair before replacing it and turning in his seat.

Making eye contact with Jonathan both frightened Patrick and excited him- the man had eyes so dark they were almost black, impossible to tell where the pupil ended and the iris began until the sunlight hit his face just right.

“So did you kill someone?” Patrick asked, half joking but half worried.

“What?” Jonathan choked out, and Pat mentally praised himself on ruffling the put-together man.

“You want to leave New York at night, you pay in cash, and you’re mysteriously dead pan. Come on, dude.” He reasoned, shrugging, “I don’t care, I just don’t want to be an accomplice or anything.”

“Do you always say shit like this?” Jonny replied, sputtering out his insult.

“I don’t know. You haven’t told me anything so I just have to fill in the blanks. That is not a New York accent though… The plot thickens.” Patrick smiled.

“Oh my god. How much do I have to pay you to shut up?” Jonathan leveled a look at him.  
“Depends.”

Jonathan sighed, rubbing his face with one big hand, silent and looking out of the windshield for a while before speaking again, “Are you a good driver?”  
“I didn’t kill you in your sleep last night.”

Another angry sigh came from the backseat and Patrick tried desperately not to smile again but the look on the man’s face told him he failed.

“How much for you to drive me to Winnipeg?”  
“As in, Manitoba? Canada-land?” Patrick laughed, convinced Jonathan was joking. If he wasn’t, this could be his ticket to getting his apartment back and setting him up for a while as he scored his dream job.

“Yes. Winnipeg, Manitoba.”

“That’s gonna be a lot of dough.” Patrick said, testing the waters, making sure the money was there.  
Jonathan scoffed and stared at him, “Name it.”

“Like, it’s going to be more than a grand.” He tried again and Jonny’s face didn’t even twitch.  
“Five thousand dollars.” Jonathan said coolly and Patrick swallowed his guffaw.

“Deal.” He agreed, reaching back and shaking the man’s hand, barely believing his luck- a fare to set him up for a little bit and an okay-looking road trip ahead of him with an attractive man in his backseat.

 

 

“I’m bored.” Patrick announced, glancing into the backseat and turning down the radio’s volume.

“I thought cab drivers liked to drive. Why else would you be a cab driver?” Jonathan’s monotone reply barely fazed Pat.

“Being a taxi cab driver isn’t exactly someone’s aspirations, Jonny. It’s money.” He waved his hand and continued, “Anyway, I was talking about this road trip. Aren’t we supposed to, you know, get out and get a feeling for where we are?”

“Fine. Stop over there.”

“Oh god, are you going _shopping_?” Patrick looked over at the strip mall Jonathan had pointed to and sighed, resigning himself to the situation.

They sat in the food court two hours later, soaking up the sun and eating the lunch that Jonny had bought them.   
“So are you going to tell me anything about yourself? Your name is Jonathan, okay, I know that. You’re not from around here. What’s your sign, why do you want to go to Winterpeg, and what the hell even are you eating right now?” Patrick asked, pulling an older Nikon 35mm out of his bag, checking it over and looking through the view finder at the people in the food court. Jonny didn’t reply until Patrick put the camera down and turned to look at him again.

“I guess it would be rude not to… We will be in the car for a while,” He reasoned and glanced down at his sandwich before continuing, “I’m a Taurus, I think. I don’t know- I don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff.”

Patrick nodded sagely, barely knowing the man but knowing that this was true. Jonny was much too serious for silly, frivolous things like astrology.

“This is a chicken avocado sandwich, it’s healthy for you,” Jonathan punctuated this with a pointed look at Patrick’s own BLT, “And I want to go to Winni _peg_ because I haven’t seen my family in a while and my little brother’s season is about to start.”

“Hockey?” Patrick said, interested but also looking for something else to playfully mock the Canadian for.  
Jonny shot him a look and answered, “Yes.”

“Did you play?” He asked, putting his camera on the table and taking another bite out of his sandwich while he waited for Jonathan to respond.

“Of course I did.”

“So did I. What position?” Patrick questioned once he finished chewing.  
Jonathan looked surprised but relaxed into the conversation, “Center.”  
Pat nodded, “Right wing. Sometimes they played me as a center but I’m horrible at faceoffs.”

He got a laugh out of the man across from him and Patrick tried once more, “So why did you leave New York in a rush, with no luggage, at night in a taxi cab?”

His response was Jonny’s now-trademarked dead pan look. Pat smiled and picked up his camera, “Let me just capture that poker face on camera.”  
Jonny recoiled and looked away, “Ugh, no. Don’t take my picture.”

Patrick lowered the Nikon and joked, “You don’t want to be on film? Are you sure you didn’t murder anyone? Wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend? Lawyer?” He whispered the last option, “ _Taxi cab driver_?”


End file.
